Renew your passport in May

6.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 23rd May 2006

Your passport is a one-way ticket to control of your identity by the government

The Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team today applied to renew their passports to prevent their details from being added to the ID cards database. Once the Government has set up the National Identity Database, everyone who applies for a passport will have to attend an interview and have their fingerprints and irises scanned. Passports issued now will be valid for 10 years, meaning people will be able to wait until 2016 before they have to register for an ID card. Passports can be renewed at any time, irrespective of their expiry date.

The Identity Cards Act 2006 turns your passport into a one-way ticket to control of your identity by the government. It means lifelong surveillance, and untold bureaucracy. If we all act together, we'll send a message to the politicians and bureaucrats who think that they can take control of who we are, and to the companies that hope to make a fortune — at our expense — helping them.

You may have heard that you'll be able to opt out of having an ID card if you renew your passport before 1st January 2010. But the card is not the point. Even if you chose not to have it, you would still have to pay for it. And you will get no choice about attending an official interview, producing numerous personal documents to be recorded, and having your fingerprints and eye scans taken for the records.

Once you are on the Register, you will never get off until it is abolished. But you'll be exposed to all the risks and dangers of the scheme immediately. The Home Office is building the most complex and intrusive ID control system in the world. It will certainly go wrong. Once you are on the Register — with or without a card — you will also be forced to keep all the details that are kept about you up to date (and sort out any government errors).

Once you are on the Register you will face penalty charges for not telling the Home Office if you move house or if any other of your registered details change.